On his way to the reception area he was confronted by the short redhead.
‘Excuse me, Daz?’ She said as she approached him. Raynor stopped and let her approach him, enter his space.
‘What’s up?’ He asked.
‘Um, well. This is a little embarrassing, but there’s no record of you starting here today.’ Raynor smiled.
‘Don’t worry, Love. I quit.’ And with that, he left through the reception area and into a waiting lift.
Got luck on your side today, sunshine.
The redhead stood; mouth agape, not quite sure what had just happened. Her attention was snapped back to the present when she heard Culpepper’s door slam, followed by Fostervold’s.
While making his descent to the ground floor, Raynor took his phone from his pocket and tapped an icon labelled BombJack.
‘Dave, sorry to bother you, but I think I’ve just found signs of a Trojan horse in the tower control software.’
Dave looked up to see Junior Systems Analyst, Lucy Green, looking anxious. Lucy had, until recently, been a stay at home Mum, looking after her twin sons, their father long relegated to a weekend visitor.
She didn’t have any qualifications until she started an online course on network security and basic scripting. Having passed with flying colours, and the twins now at school, she decided to try and find a way of applying her new found skills to real world situations. Dave gave her a chance, and never regretted it.
‘No problem Lucy.’ Dave said, putting down his copy of New Musical Express. He was stuck on the crossword and getting close to using Google, just like he had last week.
‘What have you got?’ He asked.
‘Not sure, I was running a deep scan, a couple of files have been quarantined. One’s the frequency redundancy file, used to…’ She stopped when Dave raised his hand.
‘Yeah Okay, I know what it’s for, it contains the parameters for all open frequencies. Why was it quarantined?’
The frequency redundancy file was extremely important. It could only be changed by authorised personnel, and then only with somebody watching, to sense-check the editing.
Ordinarily, the file was maintained by the communications regulator — Ofcom — who are responsible for managing civilian use of the radio spectrum. If Ofcom made changes to the file, because new frequencies had been auctioned off for public use, or frequencies had been put back into government use, all communications companies would be alerted and would be able to download a new version from a secure server owned by Ofcom. Some companies would perform a daily download of the file, just to ensure they were always up to date.
The file contained data on all radio frequencies that public broadcasters were authorised to use. If a broadcaster or communications provider were to use frequencies outside of those defined, it could receive a large fine, or even, in extreme circumstances, be forced to stop trading.
Lucy continued. ‘The logs show unauthorised change.’
For it to have been quarantined due to unauthorised change was cause for concern for Dave.
‘Okay, do we have a user name or IP address of the machine where the change was made?’
IP or Internet Protocol addresses are the post code system of the internet. They allow packets of information to navigate through multiple servers, to reach their target device. A simple domain name entered into a web browser, such as www.google.com would be sent to a domain name server, or DNS, where it would be translated into the address of the target server.
‘That’s the problem, Dave, it’s been masked. The user name is simply BombJack, the change date and time are zero.’
‘So we can’t determine who made the change?’
‘No chance. Every identifiable piece of information is null or gibberish.’
Dave looked back down at the NME and chewed his pen top for a few seconds while pondering seventeen down in the crossword.
‘So have we replaced it with the real file?’ He eventually asked.
Lucy replied. ‘That’s why I think we’ve got a Trojan. Every time we replace it, it instantly gets changed. I can see the new file hit the server, and then almost immediately, the audit shows a change.
‘What’s confusing though is the change being made.’
Dave looked up again. He was racking his brains. This wasn’t making much sense. ‘Go on.’ He encouraged.
‘Well, the only change is to open up 792 MHz.’
‘Why does that frequency ring a bell?’ Dave asked the ceiling as he leaned back in his chair, a look of confusion on his face.
‘There’s something else too.’ Lucy continued. ‘About five minutes ago we picked up a mass of digital data being sent via that frequency.
‘Now we know that the towers can all communicate on 792 we were able to triangulate the source.’ She looked at her notepad, now she was the one looking confused.
‘It seems to be bulk text messages coming from somewhere in the vicinity of The Shard in London, but there’s no identifier’s number.’
Dave sat and thought for a moment longer. 792. It was bothering him. He’d recently mentioned this frequency, but when, where? Then it hit him like a truck. Sam, Mickey, the Mills. When was that? That’s right, the day of the Salisbury Plain explosion that Sam was talking about in the pub. Some old biddies complaining about the shopping channels.
The pieces started coming together in his mind.
But it’s happened three more times.
He made the connection. The second wave picked up on the morning of the Knightsbridge bomb, then before the Soho attack, and today, just five minutes ago. The colour drained from his face.
‘Right, first thing, write a script that loops continuously, closing 792 MHz. Let’s block the return traffic.
‘And we need to evacuate The Shard, if it’s not too late’
Chapter Twenty-Nine
‘You bastard. You heartless, greedy, selfish bastard.’
Culpepper slammed the door and strode over to Fostervold. Leaning on the desk he pointed at his business partner.
‘You paid somebody to set off bombs in London! You killed your niece! Then you have the audacity to ply me with bullshit at her funeral. No wonder you didn’t want me to hire a mercenary.’
Fostervold pushed his keyboard back under his monitor and turned to face Culpepper.
‘Jim, what on earth are you talking about?’
‘Raynor? Ring a bell?’
‘Sit down, Jim.’
‘I don’t want to sit down. Right now, all I want to do is swing for you.’
‘Go ahead, if it makes you feel better.’
Culpepper, deflated, collapsed into the chair.
‘What the hell’s going on Lucas?’
Silence descended over the open plan space beyond Fostervold’s office as the muffled sounds of the argument swept over the workforce. A few heads dared to poke over the desk divides to try and get a quick peek through the translucent glass panelling that separated the action from the audience.
‘Have you been watching the share price over the last year, Jim? Drop after drop.’
‘Dropping even quicker at the moment, thanks to you.’
Fostervold smiled at the dig. His partner was right, of course. Since Raynor was let off his leash the London Stock Exchange was suffering a slump. A massive drop in share prices was experienced after the Knightsbridge attack, and the Soho bombing had seen further drops. Foreign markets were also being affected.
Fostervold said ‘I have helped it somewhat, I can’t deny that, and in the last two weeks I’ve managed to buy back a stack of shares at an extremely favourable price, but that’s not the point I’m trying to make.’
Culpepper looked shocked.
‘Hang on, you’re paying somebody to blow up London so you can buy your own company back?’